While Shadow Was Gone
by Rae Logan
Summary: Sidestory to "Teaching Darkness" series. While Shadow is gone during an overnight GUN mision, Rouge finds out that Mephiles is a lot like Shadow. Mephouge FRIENDSHIPPER One Shot.


Hey everyone! It's RaeLogan with another "Mephouge" friendshipper one shot to help keep you happy untill the next chapter of "Teaching Darkness: Job Quest", which will have to be put on hold while I fret about my senior portfolio and exibition, which I have to pass, or I don't get to graduate! Hopefully we can resume either next month or in the summer...

This story takes place after story one, by at least a couple of months, just so you know...

* * *

It was night, and the house was quiet. Because Shadow was gone for an overnight mission from GUN, which, for some odd reason, and to his friend/co-worker's dislike, Rouge had been exempted from going with him on request/order's from the Commanding General, as she seemed to be doing a lot of the work lately… the house had only two inhabitants: Rouge herself and… Mephiles the Dark.

Had this been the scenario a couple of months ago… not only would Shadow had been there to ensure Rouge's safety, but the house wouldn't be quiet at all. This however was not the case.

Mephiles had given up being a self-proclaimed demon of darkness after both having been through this whole "time-travel-to-ensure-his-existence-because-he's-in-one-heck-of-a-predestination-paradox" one time too many, and when his new plan backfired and nearly ended with personalities swapped, a near fatal injury, as well as a host of other things… and that was just him…

He now lived with the two who had previously been his enemies, and was now, simply put… living the kind of life he might have if he hadn't been driven to the fine line between the edge of wicked, and insanity from his (in his and Rouge's views) unfair imprisonment into the Scepter of Darkness. The way he remembered, he was just trying to escape the dark and terrifying laboratory that he had been born in, and a Shadow from another timeline trapped him in the Scepter. Though ten years later, after a different Shadow had broken it, Mephiles thought that that Shadow was the same one who had trapped him, though this Shadow had yet to reach the point in time in which he would travel back, with the help of Silver the Hedgehog, meet Mephiles and trap him. It would seem he himself had been stuck in a predestination paradox, which all in all, made the entire situation quite a confusing, jumbled mess.

Now, however, despite what had happened in the past, Mephiles, as he knew no one else, regarded and referred to the two GUN agents as his "closest friends"… simply because he had no others, and he and Rouge, in spite of Shadow's bitterness about the situation, had started to become friends after Mephiles had returned the favor of being saved from drowning to her by saving her from harm's way after Shadow's personality had been flipped with Mephiles'. In fact… if Mephiles now had a problem, he would seek out the white bat first before coming to the next solution.

But anyway… the house was mostly dark and quiet. Rouge was still up, reading a book in her room by book-light because she simply enjoyed the nighttime, and because she was still annoyed about not being involved in that GUN mission. Still… as she thought about it some, at least Mephiles wouldn't be left alone in the house, as there was no telling, exactly, what he might do in the situation, but Rouge drew up several scenarios: 1) He might flip out and the house would be in shambles by the time of the bat and ebony hedgehog's return. 2) Out of sheer boredom and lack of reasonability, the shade might start getting into things around the house, and either damage something by accident (either important or not…), or might get into something that Rouge hoped he would have the common sense to _not _get into, and the two come home to a sick hedgehog. Or 3) He might actually injure himself from lack of knowledge of proper safety skills.

While Rouge read, Mephiles was in the living room on the couch, asleep… or at least trying to.

His eyes were half opened lazily, his mind still unclear at what had happened. His bluish fur was damp with sweat, and light tremors ran throughout his body. He groaned softly and rolled over, curling up on his side as he shut his eyes again, shivering as a cold chill shot down his spine. A breath of air escaped him, and for a moment, stopped quivering.

Suddenly, he let out a moan of fear and started to tremble. He squirmed and twitched, twisting, tossing and turning in his sleep as he clenched his teeth together tightly. He inhaled sharply, his eyes snapping wide open as he let out a harsh cry, his body jumping a bit as he bit down on his hand out of lack of reasonable thought. His eyes shifted to the side just as his powers shot towards the bookcase and sent numerous volumes of novels crashing to the floor.

But he wasn't worried about the books, they would be fine. He was more worried about himself…

He had that dream again.

He clenched his teeth, shuddering feverishly as he brought a shaky hand to his forehead and wiped it dry with the back of his hand. The same dream that was his first conscious thought. _That _day…

He got up off the couch shakily, and made his way to the fallen books to place them back on their shelves.

Halfway through the pile, Mephiles had to stop and brace a hand to the floor as the fresh memory of his nightmare resurfaced and plagued his mind with the nerve-racking scene he had witnessed not even a few seconds after splitting from Iblis. He pressed his other hand to his head and dug his claws in instinctively, as if he was hoping to either drive it out of his mind, or cause himself to focus on the pain from the claws instead of his memory.

He almost didn't notice that he had let out a dragged yell of fright until it caught his attention, and he clapped his hand over his mouth, cursing inwardly to himself. He was bound to have been heard now.

The light in the room switched on, and immediately his ears flattened to the side as he froze, his hand on a copy of a book in a series about a kid wizard and his angsty adventures that occur during his teenaged years. He now had one of two options: A) He could melt into the ground with his Chaos powers and hide somewhere… or B) He could stay still and hope that the bat won't ask him what happened.

"What happened? I heard a yell…"

Mephiles gritted his teeth.

_Should have gone with "A"…_

Slowly lifting his hand from his head, he set it down on the now small pile of books and shifted his weight into his hands to start to stand up.

"… I'm… fine…" He strained his voice a bit as he tried to keep it as non-revealing as possible. But Rouge, having had a lot of experience with Shadow and his little "problems", was not fooled in the very least.

Her silence at his answer made him continue out of the feeling that she might persist in questioning him.

"It's nothing…" He lied. "I was a little tired… and my powers knocked the books down instead…" He half lied.

"And the yell?"

"I was surprised…"

"But it was dragged out…"

"I _said_ 'I was surprised'!" He snapped at her, spinning around, his fists clenched in front of him, his eyes narrowed and his quills and fur puffed out. "I didn't expect it, that was it… and _nothing_ more…"

Rouge looked at him, one finger twirling around one of the fur tufts on the back of her head as she raised an eyebrow slowly.

"Didn't think you'd be the kind to be surprised…"

Mephiles held his breath after he inhaled sharply, not really sure as to how to counter that. Half a minute passed and he exhaled as he narrowed his eyes slowly, turning around and folding his arms to show the bat that he didn't plan to answer that.

He waited, hoping she would leave, because he didn't want to talk about had been bothering him. He never really liked discussing his thoughts and feelings very much, but if he had to, he would choose Rouge to be his first pick to talk to. It was just that right now, he didn't want to say anything, and just wanted to be left alone.

He twitched an ear to catch the sound of her hesitantly leaving, and the light switched off, leaving him standing alone in the dark room. He let out a soft sigh, feeling that he may have been a bit harsh towards her. He hoped he hadn't made her upset, after all, she was his first friend, and because of that, he liked her a bit more than he liked Shadow.

He stood in thought for a moment, before making his way to the couch and collapsing onto it. He stared at the ceiling in the low amount of light that the streetlamp from outside pushed through the blinds, and made up his mind that he was going to apologize to her first thing in the morning, because he felt too tired to try to get up again.

_Maybe I'm just getting lazy…_ He quipped to himself, snorting a laugh through his nose, and then rolling onto his side, shifting his body a bit until he felt comfortable enough to try to sleep again.

He buried his nose into the pillow he was hugging, before letting himself finally fall asleep.

* * *

About a half an hour after she had left the shade alone, Rouge set her book down and leaned forward to hear better when she heard another cry coming from the living room.

_He said it was nothing…_ She told herself as she twitched her ears forward to pick up even the faintest of sounds. Being a bat, she had exceptionally good hearing, which could either be a blessing or a curse… depending on what it was she was hearing.

_But, still… I'll go check on him again anyway…_

Just then, she heard a crash of something wood like. She made up her mind completely.

She got off of her bed and quietly made her way to the living room. She didn't bother to turn the light on; it was too bright anyway.

In the dim light, she could see that the shelves of the bookcase had seemingly fallen out, and books of all kinds lay dispersed across the entire room, many half open, and a few sporting bent spines, and a few loose pages.

She walked around the couch, and found the source of some of the sounds.

Mephiles was sitting on the floor, his knees brought up to his chest, his arms around his legs, rocking himself back and forth, gibbering frantic and scattered words to himself as he tried to calm down.

Naturally, Rouge was both surprised and worried. What could have happened to have made him so scared like that?

"Mephiles… what happened?" She said gently, trying not to startle him. "Are you okay?"

Mephiles didn't answer, or rather, didn't seem to be aware that Rouge was there at all. Between some of his strings of babbling, his powers sparked off, and things like a decorative lamp and some picture frames, shattered on contact.

"Meph! _Can you hear me?_" She said a little louder after the lampshade was "consumed" by a small dark shadow, and disappeared from sight.

Suddenly, Mephiles' wide eyes started to glow a shade of purple as his gibbering started to become howls of fright, his hands working their way up and into his quills. The crystal tips of his quill clumps began to glow as well, and resembled a blue firefly's light vaguely. He started to shake and his fur was soon damp once more with cold sweat. One howl remained dragged out as he started to breathe fast and deeply in wheezy breaths.

Rouge could only assume he was either hyperventilating or having a panic attack, and either one could end with him getting hurt, especially with his powers going haywire as they were. She had to find a way to calm him down before that happened.

Carefully prying his hands from his quills, Rouge held his twitchy hands gently by the wrists. Almost immediately at her touch, Mephiles' eyes began to shift back to normal, and wandered the room a while before resting them on Rouge.

Still a little twitchy, he stared at the bat for a good couple of minutes before whispering softly: "… Y-you're not gonna t-tell Shadow about this, a-are you?.."

Rouge was surprised. She had expected him to ask what had happened, or even be confused and unsure of himself.

Mephiles blinked slowly before shifting his eyes to the ground.

"… Please don't t-tell him… He'll laugh at me…" He murmured.

"… I won't…" She told him as she helped him back onto the couch, pulling his blanket across him as he buried his nose back into his pillow. "Don't worry… I won't tell him…"

With a small smile, Mephiles made a quick sound from the back of his throat that sounded like he was pleased to hear that. Then he whispered as his eyelids began to droop again: "… Sorry about earlier…"

"That's okay..."

"… No… really… I was mean…" His voice was half asleep as he tried to explain.

"It's okay, though…" Said Rouge. "Shadow can get like that sometimes, too…"

"… Does he now?" Mephiles tilted his head a little and smiled even more at the thought of it. "… So… we have a lot in common?"

"A lot more than you two think… I could tell you in the morning, if you like."

Mephiles nodded slowly and buried his nose into his pillow a little deeper.

"… That would be nice…"

And then he fell asleep, Rouge smiling at him, before she turned away to leave to her room.

_He's just like Shadow… I wonder if I'm the only one to notice that._

Rouge picked up her book, and turned on the book light, returning to her novel, knowing that the books in the living room still needed to be picked up.

* * *

I can't believe I must have started a new pair up for you fans... I _still_ think Shadow is a better choice for Rouge, but I just love to write sbout Mephiles and Rouge having thier friendship moments, too. Besides, Meph needs more varity in his interaction...

Toodles!


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